


Cut Away

by The_Last_Kenobi



Series: Whumptober 2020 [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: 20-something year old General, Anakin has too much overlooked trauma, Gen, I mean honestly, Whump, Whumptober 2020, mild violence, trigger warning: restraints
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:00:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26823298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Last_Kenobi/pseuds/The_Last_Kenobi
Summary: Anakin has several problems going on at the same time. It's hard to think at the moment, but he's a little more concerned about what's not there, rather than what is.Written for Whumptober 2020Day 1 - Waking up in restraints
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano
Series: Whumptober 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1956463
Comments: 4
Kudos: 105





	Cut Away

**Author's Note:**

> Staving off writer's block by getting a late start on whumptober.

His head was throbbing.

With every passing second he regretted waking up more and more; each beat of his heart seemed to make his head burst, like knives stabbing repeatedly behind his eyes.

Anakin let out a muffled whimper and tried to reach up to touch his head, searching for an injury—

It took him much longer than it should have to realize his hands were bound behind his back.

He opened his eyes.

Blinking rapidly caused even more pain, but it revealed…a blurry mass of dark stone, damp patches, mold. It was chilly. He was lying on his side on a cold floor in a dark room, and his senses told him that the area was very cramped—probably a cell of some sort.

Given that he couldn’t remember how he’d gotten here, Anakin was still smart enough to know that he was in enemy hands.

Remember your training, he told himself, whimpering again. You can get out of this. Focus.

He summoned the Force—

It didn’t answer.

Anakin’s heart leapt into his throat, immediately followed by a wave of nausea that had him curling into the fetal position, his skin scraping against rough stone even through his chilled robes.

_No._

No, the Force had never left him—never—not even before he knew what it was—

Even as a slave on Tatooine he had never been alone—

The cuffs.

Sanity returned as his slow-moving thoughts finally landed on the answer: Force-inhibiting cuffs. It would explain the faint humming he could feel around his wrists, and the intensity of his headache. Even if he had been walloped over the head with a crowbar, he shouldn’t feel this cold and sick.

 _Empty_.

Empty…

His head was empty.

Anakin curled in tighter on himself, ignoring—embracing, almost welcoming—the deep pain the movement caused in his spine, his already tortured head—

Trying to cover the emptiness inside his head where the Force normally sang, where he normally had bonds to Ahsoka and Obi-Wan.

Anakin yanked against the cuffs and grit his teeth in pain. And then yanked again.

* * *

“Master? Master! Anakin, wake up, talk to me—”

“’Soka?” Anakin mumbled. It was difficult. His throat was raw, his lips were chapped, and he was pretty damn sure he was sick. Karking mold. Who the hell left a captured General on a damp, moldy floor for…three days? Four?

“ _Master_ ,” Ahsoka gasped. Anakin blinked up at her, confused, and saw her large blue eyes were staring not at his face, but at something behind him.

“Master, what did you—why—what were you doing to your hands?” his Padawan cried, reaching out with her own hands to begin unbinding the inhibiting cuffs.

“What?” he mumbled back.

Ahsoka dragged him into her lap like a youngling, curling around his back for support and warmth, and he felt the cuffs fall away. The Force came rushing back; it sang to him, inside him, like it always had, and Anakin sank into the feeling as gratefully as he accepted his apprentice’s warming embrace.

“Your hands,” she said again, her voice cracking. “We have to get a medic—Kix! Rex, send Kix in here now!” she called over her shoulder.

Distantly, Anakin heard Rex reply, but he was busy dragging his sore, stiff arms into his lap to examine them, see what had his Padawan so distressed.

 _Oh_.

There were deep, terrible grooves gouged into his wrists where the cuffs had been.

Blood, dried and fresh, covered him from his fingertips to his elbows, and the wounds looked—infected.

Ahsoka was talking to him, assuring that Kix was on his way, that she was sure his mobility wouldn’t be impaired for long—

Anakin didn’t care.

All that mattered was that the cuffs were off, and the Force was back.


End file.
